Napoleonic & ECW wargaming, with a load of old Hooptedoodle on this & that


Friday 24 October 2014

Dead on Arrival


Rather sad picture, with thanks to my old friends at Royal Mail. Well packed, FRAGILE eBay parcel received recently, has obviously been dropped from sufficient height to shear off a number of these very old Higgins figures at the ankles. My thoughts at this moment are:

(1) You win some, you lose some

(2) Oh well

(3) This wouldn't happen with Front Rank figures, would it?

12 comments:

  1. Yikes! Hard to believe that EVERY ONE arrived in the same broken state. You may be able to fix these with a good two part epoxy. I know epoxy works very well for me with affixing shields and spears. In fact, I have yet to have an epoxied item break off.

    As for Front Rank...no way would this happen.

    Good luck.

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    1. Hi Jonathan - no, these were just 6 casualties in a box of about 60 figures. I've seen this problem with Higgins castings before - they have very dainty ankles, and can bend (or snap) under their own weight if clouted from the wrong angle when mounted on rigid bases. 2-part epoxy could be the answer - I am slightly fearful of the stuff, but it'll be fine. It has to be said that Royal Mail invest a lot of research money into fantastic techniques (and machinery?) for damaging stuff.

      This week I sold a guitar on eBay, but I am delighted that the buyer lives near enough to here for me to be able to deliver it myself - the thought of what a courier could do to a guitar requires me to sit down somewhere quiet with a calming Armagnac.

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  2. Bad luck. I once had a fragile parcel delivered full of previously 3d figures that had been squashed into flats. They had been well packed but the sender wasn't counting on Royal Mail stamping on the package (there was a great footpring still visible on the outer wrapping). Pin and epoxy should sort them out.

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    1. A squashed parcel sounds sad but impressive. Pin and epoxy would be easier for these ECW fellows if they were hulking great 28mm, but then they wouldn't have broken anyway. I'll store them away safely and get on with something else first, and let my delusions of competence grow.

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  3. oh dear ! time for the super glue , Tony

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    1. I got in a real mess last night assembling some 20mm cannon with superglue - offended the Contesse with my profanity and amateur dramatics - sorting out these little fellows is likely to be fiddly in the extreme. Someone suggested that I should try repairing with a soldering iron, since it gives stronger joints. Lord knows what damage and injury I could cause with a soldering iron!

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  4. Hmm? Super glue and a beer me thinks??

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    1. Hi Ray - I think I'll have the beer first...

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  5. I thik we've all had nightmares with carriers, but the champions seem to be the evil twins, Royal Mail and Parcelfarce. I admire your calmness as I fnd anything like this drives me to apoplexy. A disadvantage round our neck of the woods is that we reraly get the same postie twice in the same week so you can't build up any sort of relationship with them like in the old days. Still, that's progress.

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    1. Knowing the regular postie is a big plus - especially since our reserve postie has been known to leave parcels of books on the doorstep over a wet weekend. In cases like this, the damage is done some time before our local delivery man gets his hands on them. This particular package was well packed, and posted from Morpeth, which is about 80 miles from here, so a proper government inquiry would not have too many places to visit or people to interview. The guys who put the sacks in vans at 3am must feel a safe distance from the customer. Also, FRAGILE is quite a long word to read when you're busy - maybe DROP THIS AND YOU PAY FOR IT would be better. Ho hum.

      As for apoplexy, I have a diminishing threshold of tantrums as the years pass, but I do realise it could have been worse!

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  6. That is rather a shame, though they might be resurrectable. I had a couple of 1st generation Napoleonic Minifigs shear off at the ankle like that. Copious amounts of quick drying Araldyte covered over with PVA sealed the deal. That was maybe 30 years back. I used the same method when Dog (I never called him anything else... except maybe 'Useless Mutt' from time to time...) chewed through the legs of another poor Frenchman. If I were to examine the figures closely I might recognise the fellow...

    Otherwise, one of the thoughts that would cross my mind would be to select some high management Royal Mail official and stomp all over his face. Employee problems are management problems. Clearly the Royal Mail management was failing to manage.

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    1. I have some Araldite around somewhere, but it's probably past its shelf date. The idea of quick-drying Araldite sounds almost like an oxymoron, but it is attractive - I always finish up with figures under repair suspended in some awful bracing device improvised from BluTac - it would be amusing to photograph some of these and put on an exhibition some time.

      As for the Mutt episode, it adds colour to the army if some of the troops have personal histories which are treasured as regimental traditions.

      When I opened this parcel, I have to admit that "management problems!" was the first thing I shouted...

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